Kostrzewa - A lesson in reinvention from John Singer Sargent

Owners of older, established companies who worry about the risk of changing the direction of their business should see the paintings of John Singer Sargent.

John Kostrzewa Assistant Managing Editor johnkostrzewa

Owners of older, established companies who worry about the risk of changing the direction of their business should see the paintings of John Singer Sargent.

After earning a reputation and a good living as the preeminent painter of portraits at the turn of the 20th century, Sargent, an American expatriate living in London, decided to stop because he was sick of painting rich people.

He started doing watercolors and travelled widely painting gondolas in Venice, Bedouins in the Middle East, mountain streams in the Alps, soldiers in Spain, marble quarry workers in Italy and friends and fellow artists throughout Europe.

The watercolors were brilliant and Sargent became known as the greatest painter of his age and the creator of a new style that inspired a generation of artists.

Benefactors and museums took note. The Brooklyn Museum paid $20,000 for 83 pieces in 1909 followed by a lucrative commission from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for 50 more paintings.

I saw pieces from the Brooklyn and MFA collections at a special Sargent exhibit at the MFA on a grey, rainy Saturday. The fresh, vivid colors in his paintings were striking and brightened the day. Several thousand others waited up to two hours to see the exhibit.

At the entrance to the showing, a museum curator tried to explain the significance of Sargent's change of career after being a successful portrait artist without knowing what the future would bring. She explained it this way: Imagine if Mick Jagger decided one day early in his career to stop singing Honky Tonk Women...